You know, it’s one thing to read about our pending Iranian war plans in the pages of the New Yorker written by Sy Hersh. If you find them there, like we did several months ago, there is usually some political motive behind their publication. Then again, William Arkin was covering them at the same time too.
But it is quite another to read about the plans, in a bit more enhanced and possibly advanced fashion, in Time magazine. And to have to the larger picture confirmed by the excellent reporters at McClatchy.
And Col. Sam Gardiner says we are already engaging in military actions with Iran.
Of course, the most alarming part of the Time article wasn’t this paragraph:
More after the jump.
And in practical terms, the U.S. would have to consider military action long before Iran had an actual bomb. In military circles, there is a debate about where–and when–to draw that line. U.S. intelligence chief John Negroponte told TIME in April that Iran is five years away from having a nuclear weapon. But some nonproliferation experts worry about a different moment: when Iran is able to enrich enough uranium to fuel a bomb–a point that comes well before engineers actually assemble a nuclear device. Many believe that is when a country becomes a nuclear power. That red line, experts say, could be just a year away.
It was having that paragraph confirmed by Tzipi Livni today on Wolf Blitzer’s show:
BLITZER: How much time do you believe the international community has before Iran crosses into an area of no return, in effect has a nuclear bomb?
LIVNI: The crucial moment is not the day of the bomb. The crucial moment is the day in which Iran will master the enrichment, the knowledge of enrichment.
BLITZER: And how long is that?
LIVNI: A few months from now.
BLITZER: What does that mean, a few months?
LIVNI: A few months, I mean…
BLITZER: Six months?
LIVNI: No, I don’t know for sure, because it takes time and this something that they have to try, in doing so…
BLITZER: Because other Israelis have said that would be the point of no return.
LIVNI: I don’t want to use the words ”œpoint of no return,” because the Iranians are using it against the international community. They are trying to send a message that it’s too late; you can stop your attempts because it’s too late.
It’s not too late. They have a few more months. And it is crucial because this is in the interests of the international community. The world cannot afford a nuclear Iran. It’s not only a threat to Israel. The recent understanding, also, of moderate Arab states is that Iran is a threat to the region. And I believe that this is time for sanctions.
Inexorable is my new word, because nothing is inevitable. We just don’t have the will, as a nation, to stop this trainwreck.
is whatever moment we pick that imparts a sufficient sense of urgency to justify rushing to war without dialogue or reflection.
Y’all said “45 minutes” for Iraq to launch WMD.
Y’all were full of sh*t then. Y’all are likely full of sh*t now.
Crazy works too.
Harper’s magazine pleads for someone now in the position he was in before and during the Vietnam war to spill the beans on the war planning.
I learned (among other things) that Christian Zionists are supporting the war with Iran to precipitate the Second Coming. One does wonder how strong this strain of thought is in our government.
Pastor John Hagee on Christian Zionism
John Hagee is the founder of the Christian Zionist group, Christians United for Israel. He is the senior pastor of Cornerstone Church an evangelical church in San Antonio, Texas. He is also the author of a number of books; his most recent is Jerusalem Countdown: A Warning to the World.
Ellsberg Calls on Insiders to Leak Critiques Of Possible War on Iran
NEW YORK CLARIFICATION: The original title of this article suggested that Ellsberg might have been calling for actual war plans to be released. Nothing in the body of the story supported this, so we have changed the headline. Ellsberg in his Harper’s story refers to leaking internal dissent, critiques, and “secret estimates of costs and prospects and dangers of the military plans being considered.”
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When Daniel Ellsberg, the defense analyst, leaked the Pentagon Papers to the press in 1971, it created one of the most significant newspaper stories — and battles — of the century. One thing it did not do was prevent the Vietnam War, although it may have shortened it. Now he is calling on officials within the government to leak “the Pentagon Papers of the Middle East” to modern reporters, to short-circuit another possible war.
Ellsberg’s challenge is found in the October issue of Harper’s magazine, to appear next week. E&P has obtained an advance copy.
The article is titled, “The Next War,” with the conflict in question a possible face-off between the U.S. and Iran. Ellsberg, based on unconfirmed reporting by Seymour Hersh and others, believes there is a “hidden crisis,” with government insiders aware of “serious plans for war with Iran” while “congress and the public remain largely in the dark.”
His remedy: “Conscientious insiders” need to leak hard evidence to the press and public, while risking their current and future employment, as he did in the early 1970s.
Typed almost the whole thing in: Duty
happened in one of the other segments:
Gershom Gorenberg on Christian Zionism
Journalist Gershom Gorenberg is former associate editor and columnist for The Jerusalem Report.
He is the author of the book, The End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount. His new book is The Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the Settlements, 1967-1977
Max Blumenthal on Christian Zionism
Max Blumenthal is a Puffin Foundation writing fellow at the Nation Institute, based in Washington, D.C. His work has appeared in various publications, and he is a research fellow at Media Matters for America. He has written extensively about the conservative movement, and the Christian right. His recent article in The Nation is “Birth Pangs of a New Christian Zionism.”